


under new orders

by thelonely (wizord_of_oz)



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (but welcome to TMA amirite), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Archivist!Martin, Canon-compliant suicidal ideation, Coma, Eye Trauma, Head Injury, M/M, Role Reversal, Spiders, Spoilers, Web!Jon, i promise it will not continue to only be bummers, just so many spiders, wow these are some sad tags
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:47:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24346003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wizord_of_oz/pseuds/thelonely
Summary: When The Archivist comes to The Crossroads and hesitates, Elias’ faith in him and his ability to get the job done is shaken. Thus, Elias takes the decision from Jon and gives it to the next best candidate: Martin. The reign of one Archivist gives way to another.But The Eye is not the only god interested in claiming Jon as its own—and not all Entities agree on the apocalypse.(Canon divergence from MAG121. Martin becomes The Archivist and Jon, instead, feeds a different god.)
Relationships: Martin Blackwood & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 32
Kudos: 184





	1. Chapter 1

Martin hates the hospital.

He hates the sharp smell of it and the quiet voices in it. He hates the endless white walls and sterile, lifeless rooms. He hates the watchful eyes of the staff and the shallowly hidden rot. 

He hates how it continues to take from him: Energy. Time. Loved ones. 

As he thinks of all the disease and burning and gore and confusion and loneliness and ulterior motives and surveillance and death in this building alone, he has a passing thought: _the hospital just might be the scariest place on earth._

But the fear he feels as he wanders the hallways is distinctly lonely in nature, today; as he wanders through corridor after corridor, he doesn’t run into a single other person.

That doesn’t really matter, he supposes. If anything, it’s better, this way—less people to be suspicious of him. 

So he walks down the hallway, trying to jog his memory of where the room is. He remembers the room number, but not much else. There’s no one to ask (not that he would anyways) so he just looks at room numbers, turning accordingly until—

There: a door indistinguishable from the other hundreds lining the halls, save for a blue 119 inscribed on the frame.

Not much has changed in the room, in the month he was absent. The patient care whiteboard has text written in red ink, instead of last time’s blue. Today’s goal is listed as “fMRI analysis @ 10”, which Martin has luckily missed by multiple hours. That same damned clock is still ticking away, just loud enough to notice but just quiet enough for nobody to care.

But what catches his attention is a flimsy posting taped on the wall beneath the board. Closer inspection reveals it to be a warning for staff: “If you see this man, please send him away and call this number.” There’s a picture taken from a security tape: a man of average build and average height, donning all black and strolling down the hallway. His face is uncovered, with a strong jaw and closely cropped hair. His pleasant facial features are remarkably grim.

Jon hasn’t had many visitors as far as Martin knows, besides the archival staff and Georgie. But if a stranger has dropped in recently, he doubts it was someone with good intentions.

Before he can think too much into it, a piece of medical equipment beeps, reminding him where he is. Martin turns back to the reason why he’s here.

“You’ve had visitors, huh?” Martin chuckles quietly, his voice slightly croaky from disuse. He steps closer to the bed and tugs a chair along with him. “Glad I didn’t bump into any of them.”

He settles in with a huff, gaze still on the floor as he murmurs, “Sorry it’s been a while.”

Only now does he look at Jon. 

It doesn’t hurt any less than when he first looked, a couple months ago. The number of bandages have decreased, sure, but with every visit, Jon gets more pallid. More wasted. 

Martin draws a breath and then releases it. “I-I haven’t been able to come. See, I’ve been throwing myself into work, lately,” he says, looking at his hands once more. “I mean, what else do I have to do? What with my mum passing, and y—” 

He stops himself. Scratches the back of his neck awkwardly.

Jon isn’t awake to compel him—to make him tell the truth. But Martin feels obligated to share it, regardless. 

“I’ll cut to the chase,” he says. “Elias asked me to come talk to him at the prison today. Said it was about you.”

No response. Just the constant tick-tock of the clock.

“And I guess I came to see if you would… I don’t know, tell me yourself, what it’s about. Give me a sign?”

_Tick, tock._

“I just—I don’t _want_ to talk to him, Jon,” Martin says, letting some of his frustration bleed into his voice as he looks at Jon again. “I wanted to throw him in prison and never think or speak of him again. And if it’s news from him, it’s inevitably _bad._ But if he’s telling me there’s something I should know about you, I have to go. Do you understand?”

_Tick, tock._

“Can you just tell me what it is?” he pleads, less sarcastically than he’d like. “Save me the trouble of having to see him?” 

_Tick, tock._

He sighs. “Peter says I shouldn’t go,” he admits, resting his elbows on his knees, chin in his hands. “He says that Elias will just make me doubt myself on everything I’ve done, these past few months.”

_Tick, tock._

“But I can’t keep waiting like this for you, Jon. I just can’t. I need to know so I can act.”

_Tick, tock._

He reaches out a hand and hesitates just short of Jon’s. Hardens his jaw and takes it fully into his own, running his thumb back and forward over bony knuckles. Stares at it, hoping for something, _anything_ to happen. 

But there’s no movie moment. No miracle and no sign. Jon’s hand stays unresponsive in his own, and Martin is as alone as he ever was.

“Right,” he says to himself as he gingerly places Jon’s hand back where it was. “I thought that might be the case.”

Martin allows himself a single sniffle. He slides the glasses from his nose, using the hem of his shirt to wipe the moisture from them and then the sleeve to wick it from his eyes. 

He gets to his feet. Thinks about saying a goodbye, but feels naive for it. And then he leaves.

  
  


* * *

As far as desirable locations go, the prison is exactly one tier above the hospital, in Martin’s books. Though in all fairness, this is his first visit to a prison _ever,_ and his expectations weren't very high to begin with. 

The fear here is subtly different. Surveillance compounded on claustrophobia compounded on darkness compounded on violence. 

(He’s been doing that, lately. Going places and categorizing. Compartmentalizing.)

The door he passes through feels incredibly solid, but the security around it feels incredibly sparse.

“Wh-aren’t you coming in to supervise?” Martin asks as the guard guiding him halts at the threshold.

“I don’t really see the need, no,” the guard says mildly in response. 

There isn’t anything Martin can do in response to this, rather than shoot the guard a look of bewilderment and carry on. The door closes behind him, and he’s alone.

Almost. 

“Martin,” a man greets from across the room. “I knew I’d be seeing you.”

Elias Bouchard, annoyingly, continues to look immaculately groomed despite the fact he’s spent the past four months in prison. He’s wearing a suit, of all things (although the idea of Elias wearing anything else is even more impossible); it’s a finely tailored black and purple number that Martin notes, with some petty glee, is missing a tie and all the appropriate pointy decorative bits. His hair is slicked, facial hair groomed, and posture is rigid as he sits. His cell is relatively spacious and nondescript. 

What _is_ of note, however, is the fact that he has two heavy, silver manacles looped around his wrists and his ankles. They look dated at best and medieval at worst—but sectioning and imprisonment intersect in mysterious ways, Martin supposes. 

“How is the Institute?” Elias asks politely.

“Better, without you around,” Martin snaps. 

“Oh, _vicious,_ ” the other man teases, shifting on his cot. “Taking tips from Melanie, perhaps? Putting on a hard act in dear Daisy’s mem—”

“I’m not here to have you mock me and my friends. You’re lucky I even came in the first place,” Martin interrupts, draping his coat over the single chair in the room. He straightens up to his full height, an attempt at imposing. “I didn’t want to see you. Peter insisted I shouldn’t.”

“And yet you did.” Elias smiles. “How has working with Peter been?”

Martin begins to answer, before thinking better of it and shaking his head. “You didn’t call me here to ask after how Peter manages the Institute. You said you had news.”

“I do.”

“About Jon.”

“Yes, it’s about Jon.”

Silence. 

Martin gets the sense that this is the first entertainment Elias has had in months. It must be maddening, being in here, watching events unfold with no say in the matter. He has no intention of making this meeting enjoyable for Elias. 

“I’m not here for you to play coy with,” Martin asserts. “Stop stringing me along and say what you have to say.”

“My! Martin—” Elias gasps theatrically. “You’ve done some growing in my stead.”

“As if you’re surprised,” Martin mutters. “As if you haven’t been Watching.”

“All right, no need to get testy,” his boss says, adjusting his collar. 

“Get on with it.”

Elias pauses, head tilting as he organizes his thoughts—or pretends to. “Jon is being… relieved of duty, unfortunately,” he says.

Martin stares. “You put him in a coma and now you add insult to injury by firing him?”

“It’s not what I would have wanted, by any means,” Elias counters, a hand splaying across his chest as if shocked by the accusation. “I’ve put a lot of effort, time, and training into The Archivist. This is hardly how I expected him to go.”

“Most people know to cherish their toys or they’ll break.”

“I dislike your implication that I see this as a game,” Elias frowns. “But I suppose I was a bit overeager about his first mission. The Stranger has quite the archival body count, archivists and assistants alike—”

“ _Don’t,_ ” Martin warns, fists clenching at his sides.

“Right—right,” Elias says, eyebrows raising in a mockery of pity. “But history aside, Jon’s pink slip means that there’s a vital vacancy at the Institute. Which brings me to the matter at hand.”

They both take deep, silent breaths. 

“Martin,” the man says. “How would you like to be Head Archivist at the Magnus Institute?”

A beat.

“Uh— _no?_ ” Martin protests. “Absolutely not?”

_Has Elias totally lost it? Has three months without direct hold over his pawns made him think that they’d somehow forgiven and forgotten?_

Yet as Martin stares at him, baffled, Elias simply smiles coldly. “I thought that might be your initial choice,” he says. “But hear me out.”

“No! No, I don’t want to hear you out. I’m tired of your mind games.” Martin moves back, snatching his coat up from the chair. “I wish I could say this has been nice, but it hasn’t. Goodbye.”

And he storms towards the door, hand outstretched to knock before he stops in his tracks. Feels the question pushing its way out of his lips.

The prisoner is silent behind him.

“Why me?” Martin asks suddenly, pivoting on his heel. Elias hasn’t moved and is still smiling, much to his chagrin. “Why not some other sad sap who doesn’t know what’s going on here?”

“You’re already familiar with what goes bump in the night,” Elias says, arms crossing in front of him and ankles crossing in turn. “The Institute has been under siege for the past few months, and we need a familiar face we can count on to take charge. And, again, I must admit: I underestimated you, Martin. I think you have a fortitude and a cunning quality that would serve you well in the position.”

“Furthermore: why now?” Martin demands, cautiously stepping closer. “And you think I find the job title _appealing_ , after seeing what it did to Jon? How it _destroyed_ him—”

“Jon is exactly why you’ll take this job,” Elias says, and Martin wouldn’t usually describe himself as a violent person, but he sure would enjoy punching that superior expression off of his boss’ face right about now.

With the clank of a chain, Elias rises to his feet and dusts himself off, buttoning his suit and striding over. His shoes click off the stone floor and he comes to a halt just a few inches from the bars and directly in front of Martin. 

“How did I put it earlier? Oh, yes: _Such loyalty to someone who really treats you very badly,_ ” Elias repeats, hands clasped behind his back. 

“Fuck off,” Martin spits, turning away once more, when:

“But that’s just how you choose to live your life, correct? You care for people who don’t _want_ to be cared for.”

Martin freezes. 

“Jon…” Elias says, trailing off. Sharply: “Your _mother—”_

“You’ve already played this hand,” Martin says coldly, angling back towards him. “If you’d like to traumatize me again, try some way else.”

“Well, I’ve had a lot of time to think in here—and I have a theory about you,” his boss says with a smirk.

Silence. 

“Care to share?” Martin asks begrudgingly. 

Elias sighs contentedly, taking another step forward. “I believe you might be harboring something of a martyr’s complex.”

Martin doesn’t dignify the claim with a response. But Elias continues, all the same.

“In your world, bad things can happen to you, so long as it helps someone else. How much money, time, and heartbreak did you throw into caring for your mother, only to never have her care in turn? How much loneliness have you endured these past two months, for the sake of keeping your friends safe? How many times did you offer a shoulder for Jon to lean on, only to have him use you as an expendable—”

“Make your _point,_ ” Martin says, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers. 

“Right,” Elias says. “My _point_ is that you don’t care what happens to you. But you _do_ care what happens to others. Especially to Jon. And that brings us to the offer at hand: What if I told you that Jon, without his position, will just… go?”

Both Martin’s eyebrows and pulse rise. “Go?” he echoes dully.

“Yes—he’ll go. Pass away. Be departed. The likes.” 

Elias purses his lips, beginning a thoughtful pace along the wall of bars. Martin tracks him with only his eyes, as if waiting for him to pounce. 

“Not an _ideal_ offer, for someone you care about deeply,” Elias concedes, head tilting. “I’m sure you’d rather have him back with us, in the world of the living. But if he doesn’t wake up, he’ll be spared all the future pain and suffering that his position entails. Allowed to be normal. Allowed to die the hero he always wanted to be.”

Martin lets those words sink in. _Normal. Hero._ They curl in the pit of his stomach and set his hair on end. 

“The Archivist is laying in bed right now, dead by any human metric—the only thing keeping him alive is the choice to leave his humanity behind.” It’s with this statement that Elias is once again standing in front of Martin, eyes boring holes into him. “But if you commit to the position, then Jon is free from all of _this_.”

The room lapses into silence and Martin is far too aware of the blood pounding in his ears, of the tremble of his hands and the effort of each breath. He vaguely thinks of how strange it was, that he tended not to be aware or appreciative of the hallmarks of life until confronted with its termination—or someone else’s.

But those hallmarks don’t feel like a gift, as of late. 

He thinks of the past few months—of how he’d thrown himself into Peter’s work. He’d only done as much because he’d figured that Jon was gone, anyways. And that work was dangerous and—well, lonely. But better he endure that, than his coworkers. 

(Not like they’d miss him, anyways.)

He thinks of the recent Flesh attack—of ducking behind desks and racing down hallways and peering around a corner as Melanie plunged her knife into that Thing’s side and pushed it through a door that wasn’t previously there. And he remembers diving back behind the door as she stalked down the corridor, blood on her knife and blood in her eyes, and thinking without a doubt that she was going to kill everyone down there, Flesh or not. It wasn’t until Basira was negotiating with her around the corner that Martin slipped out of that archival office, treading up to Peter’s and letting the door close behind him with a soft click. 

He thinks of that stagnant hospital room—of a flat-lined monitor and prodding researchers and Jon’s hair, long and dark against sterile white sheets. He’s sat there for hours, days, weeks, listening to the tick-tock of the clock and watching Jon waste away before his very eyes. He remembers a frail hand, limp in his own, and eyes jerking under closed lids. 

It’s all too much. 

Martin breaks, wrenching his stare away from Elias and instead stumbling back towards the flimsy chair propped against the brick wall. He slumps into it, gazing into his hands. It’s not his decision to make. It’s _nobody’s_ decision to make. 

“Think of how much he’s been through,” Elias’ voice leaks into his ears, concerned and calculated. “And if he makes it back… what comes next? No, it’s too much to bear.”

“Since when have _you_ been one for compassion?” Martin snaps, angling his head up to glare at the man behind bars. “Since when have _you_ valued being human? What’s your game?”

A pause—the hesitation of being caught in a lie. Elias sighs. “I suppose my track record doesn’t shine a humanitarian light on me. No, you’re right: I don’t care much for compassion.” He turns around, lowering himself back onto the edge of his cot. “But I _do_ care about making the most of a bad situation.”

Martin snorts. “Right. Business as usual.”

“The Archivist has been more hesitant in accepting his role than I would like,” Elias admits, crossing his ankles. “Than Beholding would like, as well. Even after receiving a talking to, he hesitates. It seems as though he values his humanity more than previously thought.”

“Not all of us are eager to pledge allegiance to Terror Entities, you know—”

“If you would refrain from being a _petulant child_ for a moment, Martin,” he cuts Martin’s muttering off in his first display of irritation. “I’ve had to learn the hard way that The Archivist’s position is one best filled by someone willing to embrace its gifts. Someone who takes decisive action. Someone who can persuade people to our way of thinking.”

“And you think that’s me,” Martin laughs coldly. “Just because I surprised you with a jail stay and know how to talk when it matters. Have you considered that I actually _care_ about people?”

“Then our goals are relatively aligned. The Archivist’s position is all about caring for people by preventing Rituals and not having their worlds ripped out from under them.”

A beat. 

“And forcing the trauma out of them,” Martin adds.

Elias heaves an exasperated breath and breaks for a moment, head dropping into his hands. When he looks up, Martin notices things that he hadn’t before: the deep, purple bags under his eyes. The graying of his hair. 

“Look,” he says. “I know this isn’t an appealing offer, but perhaps if you stopped fighting me at every turn, you’d recognize that it’s a valid one.”

“What happens if I decline?” Martin asks instead.

Elias shrugs. “Nothing much. You continue to work in the Archives. Maybe I present the same offer to Basira, but she doesn’t have nearly the same softness for Jon, nor the precept for the position. She’d almost certainly refuse.”

Martin’s mouth sets in a hard line and his hands clasp in front of him.

“Jon either wakes up, or he doesn’t—but likely, he doesn’t,” Elias continues. “On my recommendation, Peter hires a new Archivist from outside the Institute. But _they_ don’t know the half of it. And do you truly want to drag someone else into this lifestyle? Do you want to count on an amateur to protect your friends? Do you trust _Peter_ , of all people, to protect your friends? You would endure more supernatural sieges—but who _knows_ how you’ll get through the next one. You barely made it through The Flesh.”

He taps the tips of his finger together nervously. 

“That is why this is such a valuable deal, Martin. I am giving you the power to _protect,_ ” Elias emphasizes. “You don’t have to rely on a third party, anymore. You get to pull your own weight, _and_ do something to those things that aim to hurt your friends.”

Elias fixes him with another stare that he refuses to meet. He sees the man smirk out of the corner of his eye, then wave dismissively.

“But this is all speculation, of course. And suppose Jon _does_ wake up… this is all moot. But… knowing what you know, Martin, and seeing what you’ve seen: do you want that for him?”

A selfish part of Martin finds a glimmer of hope in the information that Elias is divulging— _Jon_ could _come back._

Jon could come back, if he forfeits his humanity and chooses to be something… Other. Something more monstrous. 

And Martin lets his mind wander, just for a moment, to a future. 

A future _with_ Jon. 

But reality slams back in, cold and heavy. Whatever happily ever after Martin can dream up, Jon will likely not be able to partake—not after whatever coming back entails. 

And even disregarding _that_ : What does Jon have to come back to? More guilt? More terror? More manipulation? 

(Martin doesn’t even pretend that Jon would think of him as something worth coming back for. It feels too self-indulgent, too childish.)

As Martin conjures the image of Jon the night before the Unknowing, shoulders squared and back straight as he went over the plan with them all for the millionth time, he can’t help but remember his resolve. His insistence that everyone stay as safe as they could, save for himself. 

And the job had simply taken everything out of Jon. He remembers walking into Jon’s office, finding him out cold on his couch in the wake of a statement. The smell of burnt flesh as Jon staggered into the office, right hand wrapped in his shirt and left hand fumbling for gauze. Jon, stumbling through a doorway that wasn’t there and collapsing in a heap, skin soft but eyes sunken. And that doesn’t even brush on the emotional toll—the paranoia and the distancing. The guilt and the fear. 

He’d done it all to stop the Unknowing and save the world, because he still _cared_ about the world and the humans in it, despite his own turn towards the monstrous. Jon cared about all of them, in his own grumbling, paranoid way. And it had gotten him killed. 

But being killed, as they’d all found out, was hardly the worst outcome in this line of work. In fact, it was a pretty damn good one.

Does Martin have it in him, to allow The Eye to coerce Jon away from that happy ending?

A moment of silence. Then:

“So what would I have to do,” Martin asks flatly. “Sort out the Archives? Interview and fight each monster of the week?”

“Traditionally, Archivists have worked to stop other Rituals,” Elias replies. “But the method is entirely up to you. So that, and reading statements. Other duties will be more on a case-by-case basis.”

“And these Rituals—you won’t be making me a part of one of them, right?”

Another pause. “I do not have an Eye-centric Ritual planned for any time soon, no,” he says. 

Martin rises from the seat, arms crossing in front of him. He bites his lip, purses them, then presses them into a flat line.

“Okay,” he says quietly. 

Because, it’s like Elias said: it’s making the most of a bad situation. 

Martin already had a death wish. And at least with this death wish, he has the power to protect, _and_ Jon is spared more of this mess. 

“Splendid,” Elias grins, and Martin can’t help but feel nauseous at the sight.

But no turning back now. 

“Unfortunately, I’m not trusted to be unsupervised with a pen and paper in this facility, so a good, old-fashioned handshake will have to suffice until you make your way back to the Archives,” Elias says, getting to his feet once more and making his way over to the bars. “Inside my desk, in the bottom left drawer, you will find a stack of employment papers—at the very bottom of that stack, you will see one filled out for the position of Head Archivist, and already signed by yours truly. While this handshake will be spiritually binding, I’d rather have the paperwork on file for when I get back.”

“You already had a contract filled out?” Martin asks, choosing to ignore Elias’ last couple of words.

A closed smile. “I’m prepared for most outcomes. Now: do we have a deal?”

Elias extends a manacled hand through the bars. Somehow, none of the security officers watching through cameras care to scold him for it. 

Martin regards it coldly. “This will let Jon move on?”

“Yes.”

“Can I go say my goodbyes, first?”

“Is that necessary?”

Martin is about to protest, but then thinks better of it.

He wishes he had taken an extra moment to say goodbye, during this last visit. Had taken an extra moment to continue holding Jon’s hand. Had enjoyed a cup of tea with him, listened to music with him, or read some poetry with him. Had maybe worked up the courage to confess, even. 

But truthfully, he knows it makes no difference. 

Martin had already been avoiding that hospital room for a month, partially because Peter had told him to, but mostly because he knew that Jon was dead. That he was gone, and that he had been dwelling next to the bedside of someone that was no longer there.

No, he had said his real goodbyes the night Jon climbed into that van with all their other friends and drove off to stop the Unknowing. 

So Martin simply sighs. “I guess not.”

“Good.” Elias hasn’t moved an inch. “Now: _do we have a deal?_ ”

Martin extends his hand. Hesitates. 

Then shakes.

  
  


* * *

And somewhere, lying alone in a hospital bed, everything _but_ brain-dead, The Archivist’s neurons all fire in a wild display. 

It’s a quiet affair, with no alarms to warn staff or loved ones by the bedside. Synapses flare and memories flit by and limbs flail and spasm. 

And then, section by section, the neurons begin to go dark. Chemical processes pause and the darkness spreads like a tidal wave, drowning whatever thoughts and dreams he was having into nothingness. 

He stops moving and stops dreaming. 

He’s dead, both in body and brain. 

The Archivist— _this_ Archivist is no more. 

...

But Jon continues to perplex the doctors, nonetheless. One pointless corporeal process is almost immediately replaced by another. 

His heart shudders weakly. Then it pulses, hammering with such rapid force that his body twitches almost imperceptibly on the bed, as pooled blood begins to move once more. 

His arteries and veins and capillaries begin to squeeze and relax. A network of blood, feeding an unknowing body. Circulation without an obvious purpose, but a purpose nonetheless. 

Because while his strongest ties to the Eye have been severed, Jon has another god. An older one. 

And she—and he—have unfinished business. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, slapping this chapter: this baby can fit so much dialogue in it
> 
> all right, well. hi. this is pretty dense, but when a story is as tightly-written as TMA, you gotta take a moment to pick at those threads and shove them into a new sweater. regardless, i think next chapter is gonna be A Bit Lighter 
> 
> all these s5 revelations have me thinkin' 'bout all the ways that things could have played out differently, and this is just one that caught my eye. and seeing as half of chapter 2 is already typed, i think it's safe to say that it won't be too far behind
> 
> my tumblr is [thelonely](http://thelonely.tumblr.com/)—feel free to reach out, and thank you for reading! :V
> 
> Up next: Jon reunites with an old f(r)iend.


	2. Chapter 2

The Archivist had been wandering and waiting to wake up for a while. But now that he Knew what waking up required of him, he was a little less keen. 

He had gained a suspicion that things were beginning to change, not too long ago. When the boat showed up. 

It was a cycle just like every other he’d wandered through. 

He was seated in a metal coffin under miles of earth, staring at the woman across from him as steel wraps around her. Her teeth are stark white against the dark earth trickling downwards as she smiles at him, like she always does. And soon afterwards, the earth and her skull alike collapse. 

As they’re plunged into unrelenting blackness, The Archivist waits to see the yellow door that he cannot enter—that he doesn’t want to enter. 

But instead, dark dirt gives way to dark sky. 

The Archivist looks up to see starlight glistening off of Arctic snow. There’s the gentle grind of ice under them, and black water laps hungrily at the sides of the ship.

A second glance upwards reveals the light not to be from the stars, but instead, thick white ropes of fleshy material. They curl themselves over the ship, spiraling around the deck and draping to a spot, not too far ahead in the black depths.

(Needless to say, the Ceaseless Watcher continues to Watch from above it all.) 

In front of The Archivist stands a man with a gun. 

His face is colder than the ice around him and he holds the barrel up to the helmsman’s temple, finger curled solidly over the trigger . He does not watch his captive, though. His eyes are fixed on that white mass as they sail towards it, never moving, barely blinking. 

The Archivist turns his gaze fully on the helmsman to see a pale, over-exposed face in the midst of simultaneously flattening and melting. A white tendril sags on his shoulders from above, pushing him downwards. And behind them, a line of washed out faces in similar states of destruction.

The boat enters the white watery mass and the engine cuts out. The gunman meets The Archivist’s eyes and smiles a mirthless smile, just like the Buried’s victim so often does. 

And as the debris collides into the ship and kills them all, bones splintering and flesh dripping into water, The Archivist realizes he misinterpreted. 

That was a smile of resignation. Of acceptance. 

The Archivist sinks into the black ocean and he feels The Eye surround him, wrapping around his ankles and wrists and yanking him further downwards.

And when he’s drifting in pitch darkness, his only sense of direction afforded to him by the stare of the Ceaseless Watcher, It does something strange.

The Eye blinks closed.

There’s no direction. No movement. No purpose. 

Just The Archivist, in an in-between. 

_This is The End,_ the thought appears in his mind.

 _This is what you have to look forward to_. 

_Nothingness._

_Absolute nothingness._

He sits in nothingness for a very long time. Somehow, the not-Seeing is worse than the constant Seeing. There is no sensation to be felt and no changes to consider. Just his thoughts.

(And he wants nothing less than to be alone with his thoughts—not after what he’s seen.)

Many minutes, hours, days, months, years, decades, centuries, millennia pass, and The Archivist spends them drowning any of the thoughts that bubble up in his head.

Right as he thinks he’s about to go mad, The Eye blinks open again. It pulls him downwards and suddenly he’s back in the sterile anatomy classroom, blood pooling beneath him. 

The boat only happened the one time. 

The cycle continued as usual, afterwards; whoever had provided the programming break, it had been a one-time offer. 

But now as The Archivist wanders, he feels a sense of expectation from the Ceaseless Watcher. The decision is clear: serve The Eye, or succumb to The End. 

All it would take is a step away from his old attachments and towards a new one. A removal from the before and a commitment to the after. 

And The Archivist, here, could hardly remember a time before. 

But the things The Archivist _could_ still remember from the time before make him hesitate. 

Amusement at a tacky horror movie on a date night. Quiet joy at an unexpected office birthday party. Surprise at waking up, face on a desk, with a blanket draped over his shoulders.

Terror is a powerful thing, but its counterparts tend to stay with people for longer. 

The Ceaseless Watcher demanded a decision. A commitment.

But The Archivist loved people— _loves_ people, despite the fact that they fear him. Watching is a compulsion but his refusal to enjoy it is, for now, his choice. 

He lies to The Eye and to himself.

Maybe a few more cycles and he’ll fully overcome the urge to assist those he Watches. A few more memories and the discomfort of feeding his god will pale in comparison with how his god feeds him, in turn.

So he doesn’t decide. Not yet. Instead, he continues to cycle. 

As of the moment, he’s made his way to one of his least pleasant encounters. Ants sift in a solid pile beneath him as he watches the exterminator flounder and plead. The Archivist does not move to take the hand extended frantically for him. 

And then like clockwork, the insects scatter, leaving the man curled up on the floor as the incinerator door groans before the two of them. 

Flames lick at them and out steps a familiar red dress covering bloodless, shifting skin. The Archivist has seen her many times, both in his own dreams (when he had them) and others', and yet his mind still manages to scramble every time. He tries to pull away, to think of wax and destruction, but it seems as though he still cannot escape this burning woman through the dreams of another. 

And as The Archivist stares at Jane Prentiss' charred, pockmarked form, he feels a sharp stab on his left wrist. 

The realization of sensation is jarring enough—sensation is a feature of those with corporeal forms, and The Archivist has not had that privilege for what could be eons. 

He wrenches his stare away from the Hive, raising his hand to inspect it. Perched there, fangs still embedded in one of the many eyes that dot his flesh, is a spider. 

It’s a large, dark, bulbous thing, whose gaze shines with malice and meets The Archivist’s own. Meanwhile, the assaulted eye jerks wildly, flitting between the spider and The Archivist as if instructing him to do something. Blood wells up at the puncture and begins to drip. 

The Archivist makes no attempt to remove it. Instead, he simply Watches. He’s been Watching for so long, the thought to do anything else doesn’t occur to him. 

Red pools across the whites, across the iris, over the pupil. It blinks rapidly, as if trying to clear the liquid. But the spider still lingers, still bites. The Archivist still Watches, still waits. 

And finally, the eye closes and does not reopen. 

Only now does the spider move, withdrawing its fangs and descending on a barely-there thread into the red. He watches as it scuttles over his shoe and in a diagonal into the distance.

For the first time since the boat, The Archivist sees somewhere new. 

To his left: a dark corridor, different from the Hunt’s own, on the right. A fluorescent light flickers at its end, and he hears the rhythmic stepping of many feet.

This makes The Archivist pause. Darren Harlow’s statement was written—not direct from the subject. This isn’t right. 

But as the Hive draws closer behind him and darkness from the Hunt’s corridor begins to lap at his ankles, he finds himself moving in the new direction. 

There are many things about the experience that he finds disconcerting. 

Firstly, the fact that he’s walking. The act of taking step after step, and feeling the impact roll up through his leg and towards his head. Hearing the beat of his feet as they hit tile. 

No less disorienting is the lack of people or people-adjacent. There’s always been someone to Watch, even when transitioning from testimony to testimony. But the halls here are abandoned and lifeless. His compulsion to Watch guides him to the presence—where the light is.

And there’s also the fact that he can’t feel the Ceaseless Watcher above him. It’s a revelation that’s both thrilling and terrifying. 

At the end of the long hallway, he opens the double doors and enters an empty room, one side of which is mirrored. But he can hear and feel the people, on the other side. Circling. Connecting.

His feet move him to a spot near the glass. They stop him there as if by instinct, like he’s an actor in a production that’s memorized his marks. He stands, motionless, arms at his sides and many eyes taking in his own dark reflection.

He’s not afraid of what he sees in it. But he _is_ curious why he has more arms than he previously thought. 

The melody of moving feet on the other side stops abruptly. A heartbeat of silence. More shuffling. 

And then there’s banging—thuds against glass as he watches webs spread across the mirror in front of him. They crack his reflection into fragments, and he watches as his many arms bend at unnatural angles. 

A head bursts through, then another. Soon enough, there’s a sizable hole through which he can see a line of bloodied foreheads and one poor janitor in the doorframe. 

Moving on legs that no longer feel like his own, he hoists himself through the window. Glass cuts into his hands and legs but he does not stop. He crawls over the subjects slowly and deliberately, placing one foot, then the other, back on the ground almost daintily. 

The janitor still hasn’t moved by the time Jon comes to a standstill in front of him. 

He looks so small. So pathetic. 

The hair on the janitor’s arms stands on end and his arms rise in turn, hands decisively cupping around his own throat and squeezing. 

Jon watches the man choke himself and feels a cacophony of conflicting emotions. Fear. Awe. Disgust. Pleasure. Dread. Excitement—

Suddenly, a bloodied man slams into Jon from the side and he topples, stumbling towards the shattered window and hearing his own skull wetly fracture against glass, but this time without the accompanying sensation. He slumps to the floor, wrist and head bleeding. 

But he can move. He gingerly reaches his right hand upwards, fingertips probing for the wound. Instead, he feels sticky threads and many legs. They begin to crawl over his fingers. 

He closes his eyes and opens them to a wooden door. His hand is already raised, ready to knock. 

But before he can, someone on the other side beats him to it. It’s a distinct noise, with two clear raps that suggest a solid hand behind them. 

Jon’s hand, instead, moves downwards, curling around the doorknob. And as he tugs the door open, he realizes that his hand is not a hand, but a black, pointed, sectioned thing. 

In front of him stands a teenager clutching a book. And Jon feels himself grin as best as mandibles can, legs shooting outwards and coiling around this prey. He yanks, and the door slams behind them and plunges them into blackness.

And now Jon is standing at the edge of a web. 

His weight makes the white threads under him sag, and he fears for a moment that they might snap. But that thought quickly leaves his mind when he sees an undulating white mass in the middle of the formation. 

As he takes a step closer, he thinks he might recognize them. But he can never settle on _who_ , exactly.

The muffled noises sound vaguely like Sasha, or maybe Georgie. But the movements are decisive enough to be Basira, or maybe Melanie. But they’re bigger than Basira or Melanie, tall enough to be Tim, or big enough to maybe be Mar—

Regardless.

Instinct has him stumbling across the web, desperate to protect. 

(That’s why... _this_ is all worth it. To protect others.)

(Right.)

(Right?)

He sinks to his knees as he makes it to their side and he starts to frantically work apart the strands.

He tears at it—fingernails digging and dragging, arms aching as he rips away sheet after sheet of white material. And only as he finally punches his hand through does he realize that there’s nobody in there.

Just millions of spiders. 

They descend upon him in a tidal wave, skittering up his arm and over his body until every inch of him is covered in black abdomens and legs. 

He opens his mouth to scream—it’s been so long since he’s made a sound—but before any noise comes out, spiders crawl in. 

He’s choking, spitting, writhing. In a flurry of limbs, he tumbles down. The web sags more, but does not break. As his arms and legs connect with the strands, they stick. 

He cannot move. He simply lays there, under siege. And only then does he notice.

There are gossamer threads, attached to all his joints. 

With only his eyes, he follows them upwards. And there She is:

The Mother of Puppets, perched high above. 

Her mouth twists upwards in a cruel smile, and Jon feels foolish for reasons he can’t quite place. For a million choices that were never really choices, after all. 

A black limb extends and snips all his threads at once, and he plummets down into nothingness.

  
  


* * *

It is very, very dark, and there are phantom legs crawling all over him. 

His first instinct is to try to jerk away, to shake them off, but his limbs scream in protest from disuse. 

Instead, he focuses on breathing. _In, out. In, out. In, out._

His chest is tight and each compression feels like a stab. He can hear the wheeze of air as it whistles down his too-dry throat and into his too-dry lungs. 

He works himself into the rhythm—it’s been so long since he last breathed, and he finds that it doesn’t come back to him as naturally as he’d like. It’s hard to focus, when he can still feel those _things_ crawling all over him. 

But he forces himself to ignore them. _In, out. In, out. In, out._

It could be minutes or months of this, but eventually he becomes aware of soft murmurs at the foot of his bed. 

They’re quarreling, quietly. One higher and sharp, one deeper and strong. 

Jon takes a particularly sharp breath at this— _Georgie and Basira?_ —and devotes more energy to peeling his eyes open. He forgets to breathe for a moment as he forces one lid open; it unsticks with all the force of ripped duct-tape, and he feels woozy at the first sight of sunlight in a very long time. It trickles in, soft and orange against the white ceiling. The other eyelid opens in a similar manner.

Back to breathing, and Jon flits his eyes down as much as he can: Georgie wields a tape recorder in her hand and points at a flier on the wall, as Basira stands across from her to the right of the bed, arms crossed and shoulders squared.

Another quick glance shows that he is not, in fact, covered in spiders. A small relief. 

Jon is trying to mold his lips to form words as he notes, with a start, that Basira is clambering onto the ground and under his bed. Georgie makes a noise of protest, only to be cut off.

“Down here,” Basira calls, muffled from below him. 

“I _told_ you—” Georgie retorts, and Jon tunes out for a moment to collect more air. 

Basira drags herself out from under the bed, tape recorder in hand as they talk, and Jon tries to bring some sort of moisture back into his throat before trying to speak again. 

He’s swallowing, watching them with just his eyes, as Georgie crosses her arms and asks a question that tempts fate.

“So what does it mean?”

“Nothing good, I’m afraid,” Jon finally wheezes in a voice that doesn’t sound like his own, and listens to them both yelp in response. 

It’s almost funny, until he watches as Basira bolts towards Georgie, fanning an arm out in front of her as she faces him. 

“S-sorry,” he nervously chuckles, trying to move his arms and push himself upright. The attempt is mostly unsuccessful. “Didn’t mean to scare you—”

“I’m getting a nurse,” Georgie blurts, backing towards the door.

 _“Wait—”_ both Basira and Jon interject, then giving each other wary stares. 

Basira speaks first: “Jon, is that... Is that really you?”

“I.. I think so? I’m—I’m different, sure, but it’s still me,” Jon says. “At least I think it is. I can’t really prove it.”

This isn’t a stellar response, but it prevents Basira from murdering him immediately; she gives a small grunt of acknowledgement, cautiously rising out of her defensive posture. 

He sighs, renewing his attempts to sit up despite Georgie’s protest. 

“I’m—it’s fine,” he assures, wincing as he gives up on getting himself fully upright and instead tries to prop himself up on his elbows, inching backwards. 

“Jon, you’re _not_ fine.” Georgie stalks back over, arm outstretched as if she intends to push him back prone. “Stop saying you’re _fine_! You’ve been in a coma—”

He stops struggling. “In a—I’ve been in a coma? F-for how—”

“Six months,” Basira interrupts, glancing to make sure the door is closed. “Give or take.”

 _Six months._

The wind is knocked out of him and he feels himself age those six months in an instant. He sees _Basira and Georgie_ age in an instant. He takes note of how Georgie’s hair is slightly longer than it once was. How Basira’s face bears a scar on her cheek that wasn’t there before. He glances out the window and sees a dusting of snow on the streets. 

He takes a moment to stare at his hands, wrapped in the sheets. Just a moment of self-pity. And then he remembers:

He lost six months of his life, but maybe the others got luckier. 

“Did the others—did Tim…?” he immediately asks, noticing how the name makes Basira go rigid. Noticing her eyes slide away from his. 

He doesn’t want to ask further. But he does need to Know. 

So he reaches again for the faucet. He imagines himself wrapping his fingers around the lever, clenching his arm and twisting. But as much as he twists and waits for knowledge to flow, it simply… doesn’t. He’s starting to get concerned, when:

“No,” Basira interrupts his thoughts. “Tim didn’t make it. Neither did Daisy.”

He lets out a solemn breath. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.”

Her tone is flat with what could either be acceptance or denial—he can never tell with Basira.

“Okay,” he breathes, shifting anew. “Here we—”

“ _Jon,_ ” Georgie warns. “I told you to stop.”

“But I’m fine—”

“ _Please._ ”

“How do you feel?” Basira asks from the side. 

He takes a moment to assess himself. His limbs feel like they’re filled with lead and speaking takes effort, but all things considered… 

“I-I don’t know?” he admits, letting out a whine of effort as he finally gets his back propped up against the pillow. “Not… not _great,_ but I feel… here. Present. Okay, for the most part.”

Georgie exhales sharply and he snaps his head over to look at her.

“What?” he says, brow furrowing as her hand comes to cover her face. “W-what’s wrong with that?”

“Most people don’t wake up from six month comas and immediately have coherent conversations, Jon,” she says flatly. “This isn’t right.”

He scoffs in disbelief. “You—how could you—w-would you rather me be—”

“ _Enough,_ ” Basira cuts in again, giving them both sharp looks. “Georgie, could you give us a minute?”

“Yeah,” she says sullenly, already reaching for her bag back against the wall. “Yeah, that’s fine.” She hugs it to her chest, jaw set and stance rigid. It’s a posture that Jon has only witnessed two or three times, for the rare occasions that Georgie is truly and thoroughly upset. 

It’s the first punch of emotion he’s had since waking up: guilt. It’s heavy in his chest and thick in his throat.

She moves for the door and Jon stammers, “Don’t—Georgie, I—”

Hand on the doorknob, she speaks: “If this is a second chance, I hope you take it.”

She looks at him one last time. “But I don’t think it is, and even then: I don’t think you would.”

(He doesn’t have a response to that.) 

“Take care of yourself,” she murmurs to him and Basira alike, and then she’s gone. 

The room is eerily quiet once again. The clock ticks and the guilt in Jon’s stomach curls. 

He sighs, sitting more upright. “I…” he starts, then trails off. He glances over at Basira. “What about you?” he asks, failing to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “How do you feel about me being back?”

No expression. “Not really relevant, at the moment.”

“Right.” 

Another pause.

“Do you… need water, or anything?” Basira asks awkwardly. Jon squints in response.

“No, no need for that. I… I need…” he says, struggling to voice what he’s craving. He’s hungry, but he’s not sure for what. “Maybe—”

“Oh.” 

He’s cut off by her quiet exclamation, as she moves to rummage through her satchel.

“I, uh… I brought a statement.” She removes it with a flutter of paper, then extends it, leaning forward but feet rooted in place. “Thought you might be hungry, when you came back.”

“Oh, um. Thank you, Basira,” Jon says, painfully aware of how slowly his own hand raises to take it. Of how much effort it takes to curl his fingers around it.

When it’s firmly in his grasp, Basira straightens back up. “I’ll go… give you some space. Give me a shout when you’re done.”

He gives a hum in response and she moves through the door, giving him a final look before closing it behind her. He leafs his thumb between the edges and unfolds it, rubbing the crease out of the center and trying to focus his eyes on the text. 

His head spins. And his throat is so, so dry. He swallows, then weakly coughs, trying to dislodge whatever feels like it’s stuck there. He speaks. 

“Statement of Lorrell St. John, regarding…” he waits a heartbeat, waits to Know. 

But he doesn’t.

So instead he shakes his head. “Original statement given 1st of February, 2015. Recording by Jonathan, Head Archivist at the Magnus Institute, London. Statement begins.”

He reads through the statement. And it feels horribly wrong. 

It’s hard to put the sensation he used to feel as he read statements into words. Some that immediately come to mind are: _Tiring. Thrilling. Filling._

But he doesn’t sink into the narrative as much as he usually does when consuming a statement. His voice wobbles, and his eyes unfocus, and it just sounds hollow in his ears. There’s no pleasure or substance in it. When he reads through the last few words, he finds that he can’t even discern if this is a real statement, or not. 

And he still feels _drained._ His hands tremble as he holds them up and his head has a strange tightness to it that makes everything just seem one degree removed from reality. 

He closes his eyes and keeps twisting at the faucet, putting all his energy into opening that stoppage, and there’s still nothing. No knowledge. 

Something is wrong, and Jon isn’t sure what. 

He puts the statement down in his lap, pinching his brow between his fingers. Only then does he notice the state of his left wrist. 

Two dots, medium in size and dark purple in coloration. The veins run white beneath them, branching and intersecting wildly. The odd pattern covers a decent portion of his forearm, but does not extend to the topside. Thank goodness.

(Staring at the dots, he gets the sensation that they’re puncture marks, but he isn’t entirely sure why.) 

He doesn’t want to bring attention to what he doesn’t understand—not when he already has to tread lightly. So he shoves his arm under the blanket, takes a deep breath, and calls out to Basira. 

She comes in soon afterwards, taking care to close the door quietly behind her and then shoving her hands deep into her pockets.

“No Georgie?” Jon asks.

“No. She must’ve run off,” Basira shrugs. “How was your snack?”

He starts to speak, to ask more into Georgie before he stops, thinking better of it. Instead, he sighs. “It’ll suffice,” he lies with a grimace, and then the strangest thing happens. 

He feels better.

Not monumentally better. Not enough to negate a six-month coma. But… his throat is less dry. His limbs ache less. The world and his thoughts come into sharper focus. 

Basira doesn’t seem to notice anything. “You still look like hell.”

Jon blinks, then remembers to respond. “In all honesty, I’d love to sleep some more.”

“That’s too bad,” she says, pulling a backwards chair up next to him and sliding into it, arms folded over its top rail. “I have questions.”

“As do I.”

“What are you?” she launches off immediately. 

And that’s the kicker. Jon truly doesn’t know. As if the question of human versus inhuman wasn’t complicated enough, he now has the question of which _flavor_ of monster he likely is. But he doesn’t feel like a monster. So he answers honestly:

“I-I _feel_ human?” he guesses. “Or rather, I don’t feel _inhuman?_ It’s—it’s difficult to say. I feel like myself. But I also feel… more real, somehow. Though, given I’ve been dreaming, that’s hardly a surprise.”

“Dreaming?” Basira asks, eyebrow raised. “About…?”

“My turn,” Jon dodges. “What happened to me?”

“What do you think happened?” she says simply. “What do you remember?”

“The… The Unknowing.” Jon rubs his forearms as he squints and tries to recall. “Music, and… wrongness. Gertrude, and dancing, and… fire. Pain. Tim… Tim is really…?”

“Yeah, uh… found him a couple days after everything.”

“Daisy, too?”

“Eh, well. No remains from her, but…. no. It’s been months. She’s gone.”

Basira sniffs, arms folded, jaw locked. Jon tries to ignore the faint shine to her eyes as he rubs a hand over his face.

“So it’s just us, then,” he breathes. “Us, Melanie, and Mart—” 

And he kicks himself for not remembering earlier. 

_“Martin,”_ he blurts. “Is he okay—did he—how did—” He stops, inhales, and then asks: “What did Elias _do?_ ”

She shifts her weight. “Nothing.”

Jon blinks. “Nothing?”

“No. Elias isn’t the problem.”

And Jon listens in horror as Basira loosely describes the past couple of months to him. 

Peter Lukas. Martin’s transformation into the living equivalent of an archival ghost. Elias’ imprisonment somehow manages to be the only ray of sunshine in what otherwise sounds like a brutal six months. As she finishes a summary that’s more sparse than Jon would like, Basira clears her throat.

“I’ve got one more question for you,” she asks, eyebrow raised. “Why don’t you just Know some of these things? Like you were doing before? And when you asked me those questions just now—didn’t feel like it usually does.”

This question freezes Jon in his tracks. Sometimes, Basira is too perceptive for her own good. 

He could just be honest—tell her that for all his trying, their god seems to have cut him off, and he’s in the dark for the first time in a long time. She might even appreciate the honesty. 

But Jon’s usefulness to Basira is in his Knowing. She’s barely okay with the idea of The Eye bringing him back, as is. And if it wasn’t The Eye that let him resurface… 

It’s unlikely that Basira puts nearly as much patience into any of the other powers or unknowns. 

With this in mind, Jon takes a breath and does something he’s not proud of.

“I think… it’s resetting, perhaps,” he suggests, right hand wrapping itself in the sheets. “I haven’t used it in so long, it’s taking a moment to readjust. Or maybe _I’m_ taking a moment to readjust.”

It’s an unfounded speculation at best and a giant lie at worst. He prays that she can’t see it all over his face—everything about him feels like a giant red flag, from his inability to hold her gaze to the way his fingers tap nervously on the mattress. 

He can tell her the truth later, once this is all figured out. Maybe it will return. And even if it doesn’t, he can claim that the power simply never returned. He can make himself useful in other ways, if need be. For now, he just needs her to leave it alone. 

Basira gives him a hard look. “Hm,” she frowns, but does not argue. 

And with this sullen acceptance, Jon feels it again. 

The best descriptor for it is a burst of adrenaline: it shoots outwards and gives him a shaky sort of energy that pushes aside his deep, post-coma tiredness. His breathing feels deeper, more solid; his heart thuds in his ears, and the world becomes sharper. 

He does not remark on this. He sits silently in bed, unable to meet Basira’s eyes and trying to convince himself that he’s only shaking because of the coldness of the room.

(The dots are there, but Jon really does not want to connect them.)

“Right,” Basira says awkwardly, lips pursed. “I’ll be off, then. I’ll go… talk to a nurse, on my way out. Let them know.”

Something makes Jon stop her. “Actually, Basira: I’ll just use the button and call them in, when I’m ready,” he finds himself saying. “I just… I want to brace myself, before they come in to prod me.”

She shrugs. “Fair.” 

She leaves uneventfully, closing the door behind her. 

Jon lets out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. He rubs a hand over his face, then reaches for the statement again before fumbling. It flutters to the floor on the left side of the bed and he curses under his breath. 

With a groan, he inches his way towards the edge, fingers extended and grasping. 

Instead of closing around the paper, they close around the wicker handles of a gift bag, just under the bed. 

Hooking it and hoisting it upwards with a considerable amount of effort, he finds that it’s a plain blue bag, with tufts of white tissue paper peeking out from its top. 

Inside: a black henley, dark jeans, simple leather loafers, and a pair of glasses. Holding the glasses up to his face, he finds that they’re exactly his prescription. 

As he unfolds the shirt, a note comes fluttering out. 

_Let’s chat,_ it reads in thin cursive. _Details on back. Tell no one._

And signed with a simple _AC._

Jon reads it once. Twice. A hundred times. Glances around his room and makes sure that no staff are en route. Takes a deep breath. Then:

“I hate spiders,” he mutters, beginning to get dressed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we love a good ol' dreams-and-canon-tweaks chapter, huh?
> 
> in reality, i might be coming back and polishing this one a bit later. mostly because i am Very Excited to get on with what comes next :V
> 
> my tumblr is [thelonely](https://thelonely.tumblr.com/)—feel free to reach out, and thank you for reading!
> 
> Up next: Choice is a tricky thing.


	3. Chapter 3

Fate—or fate’s sinister sister—has it that he manages to slip out of his room and down the corridor undetected by hospital staff or security. 

He initially tried consulting the maps on the corners. Hall after hall filled with identical doors leaves him disoriented, and he looks for markers and room numbers for guidance. But as he glimpses a nurse rounding the corner, he ducks down a diverting hallway and quickly gets lost again. Two or three repetitions of this, and soon he gives up on consulting the maps out of mere frustration. Instead, he weaves through corridors and down passageways seemingly at random; it does not go without notice that, with this new approach, he doesn’t encounter a single other human being as he walks.

He wanders upon a backdoor that doesn’t even sound an alarm when he opens it. And as he steps back into the crisp winter air, he can’t help but feel like it was all painfully easy. 

Free at last, he flips the paper over.  _ Details on back, _ as it turns out, doesn’t mean much at all. 

_ Merci Eatery, _ it reads simply.  _ You’ll know how to get there. _

Jon does not know how to get there, nor does he Know how to get there. He doesn’t have a phone or a map to consult on the matter. And all that awkward interceptions of passers-by earns him are bewildered looks and blunt  _ I haven’t heard of it _ ’s.

He inspects the note one more time, then sighs. 

_ But that’s the point, isn’t it?  _ he thinks, tugging his shirt sleeve down over his hand in a futile attempt to ward off the cold.  _ I’m not supposed to know. _

So he steps into the street and begins to wander down whatever corners feel right.

The danger of the situation isn’t lost on him. He knows who’s waiting for him, and her god is a complicated one. One that acts, oftentimes, in direct opposition to his old alliances.

If The Eye is about the terror of knowing someone is standing by passively, The Web is about the terror of knowing someone is standing by, orchestrating. It’s a more active approach to human suffering than he’s used to. 

He knows exactly how he would have navigated this scavenger hunt, six months ago: he would just Know where this location was. And now, he’s expected to be okay with not knowing—in fact, he’s expected to  _ trust _ that he’s in the right trajectory. But all that trust seems to be earning him at the moment is a headache.

(If there is a single good thing to be said about the coma, it’s the fact that he didn’t have to deal with this usual avalanche of thinking.)

As he walks, he can’t help but notice how strange his brain feels, sitting in his skull. Maybe it’s the coma, but it feels stiffer than it used to. More fragile. Human brains were never made to contain the catalogue of human suffering that his once did, but at least he felt like he was starting to adjust. 

Now his skull just feels hollow. 

But he has more immediate concerns at hand—namely, surviving this conversation. Perhaps the restaurant invitation is a peace treaty. Dining in public makes kidnapping slightly more difficult.

* * *

To his relief—or dismay, he’s unsure—, wandering aimlessly successfully brings him to the Merci Eatery. It’s a small, homely cafe tucked away on a street corner, with a bustling patio dotted with diners and heat lamps.

She stands out like a sore thumb, tall and static compared to the soft chaos of the other diners.

She sits at a small, round table spaced apart from the others, spindly legs crossed at the ankle and spindly arms folded in front of her. Her gray wool ensemble seems oversized and cocoon-like on her, completed with a wool hat covering bleached, short hair. White, webbed lines extend across her right temple in sharp contrast to her dark skin, and as he stares, he swears he sees the lines move.

Her eyes are already trained on him as he approaches.

“Jonathan Sims,” she greets.

“Annabelle Cane,” he greets in turn. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

“And I rather wish you hadn’t,” she says, gesturing towards the seat across from him. 

“I wouldn’t have heard of you before, if you didn’t want me to,” Jon says as he sits cautiously. “That’s how it works, correct?”

She grins humorlessly. “Aren’t you clever.”

“I assume that if you’re choosing to speak to me, it means nothing good,” he cuts to the chase. 

“Jon—can I call you Jon?” 

“I’d rather you—”

“Jon: you don’t appreciate it yet, but you’ve been offered a wonderful gift,” Annabelle says. “You’ve been offered the opportunity to be the unknowing hand to a great, terrific body.”

“I’ve been acting as a hand for a while, now, and it’s not a job I’m particularly fond of,” he retorts, reaching for his water glass. 

“Sounds like you’re pleased about your unemployment, then.”

Jon immediately chokes on his water, coughing as he hurriedly places the glass back on the table. “My—my  _ what? _ ”

“Elias has forsaken you,” she says simply, hands folding in front of her. 

Jon scoffs. “He wouldn’t.”

“And yet he has.” 

This makes Jon pause. He lets out a confused noise, starting and stopping before asking: “But—he wouldn’t, would he? He’s been… preparing me. He seemed downright confident in me, before the Unknowing, if anything—”

“You waited too long to decide,” she says, eyes gleaming. “Even after your meeting with The End. And thus, it was taken out of your hands.”

“‘Taken out of my hands’—you don’t mean Elias hired a new Archivist?”

This earns a laugh from her, high and disconcerting. 

He blinks hard, planting his hands on the table and pressing downwards, trying to anchor himself. 

And he knows it’s true. 

He keeps fumbling at the faucet in the back of his brain, twisting and waiting, but nothing comes out. He can’t tell if the weight he feels from that ocean of knowledge is from its presence or its absence.

“Who?” he hears himself ask from what sounds like a mile away. “Who’s the new Archivist?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Annabelle ensures. “The position is in good hands. At least by your standards.”

“ _ Tell me who The Archivist is,” _ Jon demands, instinctually grabbing for that power once more before realizing how hollow the words feel. He holds for a moment, then lets the tension drain from his shoulders as he slumps back into his seat.

Powerless. He’s powerless. 

“Scary!” Annabelle chuckles, nose wrinkling as she leans back in her chair. “But you’ll need more tact, going forward.”

(For once, he isn’t afraid. But he isn’t sure he likes the white hot emotions bubbling upwards in fear’s stead.)

He distracts himself from the fire in his stomach with a question: “What do you mean, ‘going forward?’”

Annabelle smiles and leans forward. 

“Here’s our offer, and we don’t intend on giving you nearly as much time as Beholding did: continue to work at the Institute, and feed The Web when asked.”

Jon stares. Annabelle simply stares back. He tries to scour her face for hints, for lies, but he’s out of practice in perceiving the old-fashioned way. 

He feels like a moron as he asks, “That’s it?”

Another laugh. “That’s it.”

“How will I know what to do?” he asks warily. “How will I know what She’s asking of me?”

“That’s really the beauty of it,” Annabelle grins. “You follow your instincts. The Mother will do the rest. All of your decisions have already been made.”

“And you think I won’t notice if your...  _ Mother _ compels me and I start behaving out of my own character?” Jon asks. “That other people won’t notice?”

“Oh, Jon,” she says with all the seriousness used in addressing a child. “What  _ is _ character, if not your actions? No, you’ll follow your instincts, which will determine your actions. And I think you’ll find that your character is more malleable than you previously thought.”

“I never was very good at following my gut, in all honesty—” Jon mutters to himself. 

“Then you’ll have to get better at it,” she cuts in. “For all your… hemming and hawing over most decisions, when you’ve acted on impulse, you’ve made big waves.”

“Like… like the time I smashed your table and unleashed a monster in the Institute,” Jon deadpans. “Or the time I went to go take a smoke and came back to a brutally  _ murdered _ Jurgen Leitner, and then spent the next couple of weeks hiding from the police in my ex’s flat.”

“I said big waves,” Annabelle says. “Not pleasant ones. But they were necessary.”

“And what if I say no?”

“It’s simple: you accept, and you live. Or you decline, and you die where you sit,” she says with a theatrical shrug. “And I know you’re going to accept.”

The steady din of plates and chatter fills the conversational quiet, and then, despite himself, Jon laughs. Just one, quiet laugh. 

Annabelle merely raises an eyebrow. 

“I— _ hah _ , I’m sorry, it’s just—” Jon smiles, readjusting his glasses. “It just seems like you put so much  _ effort _ into getting me here. If my other god didn’t manage to completely sell me on it, I’d love to hear why you think I’d take  _ this _ offer, instead.”

“That’s also simple, actually,” Annabelle replies, face neutral. “Because you have people you want to protect. And if you’re not here to help, well, I’m afraid that they won’t be around much longer. Not in the way you know them.”

Jon is no longer laughing. Bluntly: “Is that a threat?”

“More of a statement of fact.” 

He knows she’s right. Based on Basira’s account of the last six months, it sounds as though things have already taken a turn for the monstrous for his coworkers. He knows firsthand that it’s a slippery slope. But if he were there to offer more protection, to work with them on solutions, to help them stop Rituals…. He may even be able to stop the new Archivist’s progression. 

But he doesn’t  _ have _ to choose that. 

“I’m not sure why you brought me here, if you already know my choice,” he admits out loud, drumming against the tabletop. “I thought… I thought there was some degree of choice involved in all this. That I would have to seek out The Web. But… my dreams… they weren’t really….”

“Choice… choice is an interesting thing, for us,” Annabelle smiles, extending a finger to circle around the lip of her glass. 

“I’d imagine as much,” Jon says. “How does one choose to be a puppet?”

She purses her lips. “I envision our kind more like… puppets that guide their own puppets, in turn. Spiders ensnared by bigger spiders.”

“Sounds like bureaucracy at its most inefficient,” Jon mutters. 

“More like religion at its most direct,” she responds with a lowered brow. “How are we supposed to understand the grand plan, small as we are? No, we let The Mother move us as needed.”

(This whole discussion is worsening Jon’s already pounding headache.)

Annabelle rolls her eyes upon seeing Jon’s expression.

“This might require a demonstration. Here,” she says, gesturing towards her water glass. “This is most gods’ plans. Feed on fear. Carry out the Ritual. Bring them into our world. Straightforward.”

Jon nods.

“Boring,” she adds. 

Without so much as blinking, Annabelle lifts the glass and slams it against the side of the table. Jon jolts in his seat, nearly tumbling backwards. Nobody around them seems to notice. 

Shards of shining glass tinker to the floor and Annabelle places the cup firmly back down on the table—the glass’ shape holds, but its surface is marred by circles and lines of fractures. 

“And  _ this _ is The Mother’s plan,” she says with admiration in her eyes and devotion on her tongue. 

Jon shudders. 

She chooses one fracture seemingly at random, trailing a finger back and forth along it as she speaks. “The Mother has us walk a line. We do not know where that line leads or what it builds, but that line has always been present—and we were always fated to walk it. And sometimes, that line intersects with others’. Either we guide them in the right direction along their own line, or we’re the point at which their line ends.”

“Manipulation or murder,” Jon summarizes bluntly. 

“Don’t act like some sort of saint,” she says. “You’ve taken to twisting arms to get what you want quite well.”

“I-I don’t  _ manipulate _ people—” Jon insists, starting to get to his feet. 

“You  _ didn’t _ manipulate people,” Annabelle corrects. “Not until recently. And not  _ effectively _ until your powers kicked in. But… it felt good, right?”

“ _ N-no, _ I—”

“Come on, Jon, you can be honest, here,” she grins. “Monster to monster.”

“ _ I’m not a monster, _ ” he protests, plates and utensils clattering as he jostles the table in his hurry to stand.

Finally, the other patrons notice him. But rather than curious, shielded glances, all of their heads swivel in unison, eyes locking on him in remorseless stares. His breathing halts as his eyes dart to look at each of them in turn.

Annabelle merely scoffs. 

“You Beholding people, I swear—always needing a reason, always needing to  _ prove _ something,” she says, eyes never moving from him. “I don’t know what The Mother sees in you.”

Pinned by the weight of the other diners’ gazes, Jon warily sinks back into his seat. “...Me neither. But it seems as though we’ll both have to deal with it.” 

As he rests his full weight into the seat, the patrons turn away and the polite din resumes. And as they size each other up across the table in bitter silence, he finally thinks to ask the big question.

“Why me?” he finally puts forward. “The Web and I didn’t exactly part on amicable terms two decades ago. I didn’t feel any particular draw to Her. If anything, I  _ loathe _ Her. Why not just let me die?”

“We all have parts to play, Jon,” she replies. “And The Mother seems to think that you’re more useful alive than dead.”

“You can’t just bring back  _ anyone _ . You have to be drawing on some sort of connection I have with Her—”

“You trust people,” she interrupts with an irritated stare. “And some very important people trust you. Trust is a vital currency of The Web—both in fulfillment and in betrayal.”

“I’m no Gertrude Robinson,” Jon says coldly. “I have no interest in betraying my friends.”

“Well, thank  _ goodness _ that we’re on the same side, then.” Exhaling, she plants her elbows on the table and leans inwards. “Look: The Eye and The Web are, at face value, working towards stopping the end of the world as we currently know it. Our goals are aligned. Working with Us simply means working against The Eye’s long-term goals, which I’m sure you weren’t inclined to assist with even when you  _ were _ employed under Them.”

“And I suppose that I don’t get to know what The Eye’s long-term goals are.”

“The apocalypse.”

“So Elias  _ was _ planning on the Watcher’s Crown?”

“We don’t think so.”

“Care to clarify?”

“ _ Your _ job is to clarify.”

Jon crosses his arms. “And you think The Eye will have no problem with this plan of yours, letting me waltz into its stronghold, file its paperwork, and enact some occasional espionage?”

“You should know by now that the Powers bleed together around the edges—and besides, given your history, The Eye still has some fondness for you. Signing an employment contract with The Eye won’t sever your connection to The Web.”

“That isn’t as reassuring as you might hope.”

“It wasn’t meant to make you feel better.”

They sink back into silence, Jon’s gaze on his hands in his lap as a cold acceptance washes over him.

He hates it, but The Mother is right. He is going to take this deal. He  _ has _ to take this deal. Not with the world at stake. Not with his coworkers—his friends—at stake. It was never really a choice. 

But that’s par for the course, now. 

“I won’t make you announce your decision or shake on it,” Annabelle announces, as if reading his thoughts. “You’re still breathing. I know what you’ve chosen.”

He sighs in defeated response. Then:

“So I feed off of lies, now?” he asks. 

“Not lies. _ Manipulations— _ ” Annabelle corrects. “Manipulations that you get away with. And ones that open future possibilities. You won’t die without them, but you certainly won’t feel well. Better to stay well-fed.”

“And do I have…um,” he mumbles, regretful before the question leaves his mouth.

She raises an eyebrow, prompting him to speak.

“Do I have… uh.  _ Abilities _ ,” he manages, feeling stupid the moment it leaves his mouth. “ _ Tools _ at my disposal.”

“Oh, Jon,” she says with a condescending smile. “Consider your life as a... signing bonus. But you’ll have to work for further perks.”

He purses his lips. “Right.”

A beat, then Annabelle finally rises from her seat. “This is where our paths divert, for now.”

Jon sputters, shocked at the abrupt end to the conversation. “What, that’s  _ it? _ How do I contact you if I need more information?”

“You don’t need information,” she says. “You need  _ instinct. _ You’ll know what to do.”

She gingerly picks the shattered glass up, holding it to her face. Her reflection is sharp and many-eyed.

Still smiling: “Don’t forget your lines.”

He blinks and she’s gone.

He blinks and the other patrons are gone. 

He blinks and the world takes on a gray tint.

He blinks and he comes to in an empty warehouse, surrounded by wooden crates and without another living soul in sight. His head swims as he gets to his feet, joints aching in protest as if he’s been sitting for hours. A glance outside a window confirms that the sun is down— _ how long has he been here for?  _

He walks to the door on weak legs and opens the door to the outside, mind scrambling as he tries to sort through the conversation and what has to happen next. But his thoughts give way to acute awareness of the cold biting his hands and his lungs, of his pulse in his ears and the hot air rising from his lips.

He finally lets himself think the impossible thought:

_ I’m alive. _

And while he feels a quiet thrill at the idea, the emotion is sullied by something more bitter. 

He allows himself a moment of grief for the burden he hadn’t agreed to but had grown comfortable bearing—even now, he feels the loss of the Knowing, like some sort of phantom limb. 

He feels a sickening mixture of dread, pity, and envy as he wonders once more:

_ Who’s the new Archivist? _

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oops! all dialogue—the cool new game where you realize that with a story originally presented in an auditory medium, most of the plot progression is through talking. luckily, we're moving into more action-y territory going forward in this fic.
> 
> well. on one hand, i apologize for the extended hiatus. but on the other hand, life is pretty hectic and i have limited writing time, and it'll probably be a wait for the next chapter—sorry in advance. regular posting has never been my strong suit :V
> 
> my tumblr is [thelonely!](https://thelonely.tumblr.com/) feel free to reach out there. i'm very excited to see how the tma lore develops, especially now that we're in endgame!
> 
> and of course, thank you for reading!


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